As the niece of Scientology’s leader (David “Tiny Tyrant” Miscavige), Jenna Miscavige was born into the cult and raised as one of the Sea Org members who sign a billion-year contract as early as age 7. Growing up, she spent very little time with her parents and endured 14+ hour workdays, 7 days per week with only a few days off per year. After her escape as a young adult, Jenna founded the ExScientologykids.com website with a couple of other ex-members, and now she lives a relatively normal life in San Diego with her husband (Dallas Hill, also a former Scientologist) and their two children.

Just this week, Jenna has released a book Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape that details her harrowing, brutal experiences within Scientology’s ranks as well as her eventual escape. Here’s a clip from Jenna’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s CNN show where she talks about barely ever seeing her parents and being brainwashed by the CO$ to the point where she disconnected from them when they left the Sea Org:

Notice that Jenna mentions the blatant irony of the Scientology Super Bowl ad. That’s exactly how desperate this cult is getting — they’ve been forced to purchase some of the most expensive advertising real estate in history. It’s really only a matter of time before this organization crumbles. In the meantime, Jenna has been doing her part to bring the CO$ down, and during the Piers Morgan interview, she discusses how celebrities are treated incredibly differently than the rest of the members. Primarily, she discusses whether or not Tom Cruise is aware of this discrepancy:

On the heels of a divisive Scientology ad that aired during the Super Bowl, on Tuesday evening “Piers Morgan Tonight” invited Jenna Miscavige Hill to share her unique perspective on the controversial religious organization.

The niece of current leader David Miscavige, the guest left the church nearly a decade ago and has since become an outspoken critic of the organization and its teachings.

Well-known for its connection to some of Hollywood’s biggest names — including Tom Cruise and John Travolta — Scientology has been accused of being a cult that brainwashes its members, and forces children into long hours of unlawful labor.

According to Hill, Cruise and others are either turning a blind eye, or simply perpetuating the problem:

“I think that either he does know what’s going on and he’s not talking about it, or he is willfully ignorant about it,” she says of the star of the “Mission: Impossible” franchises. “People who endorse an organization like this, I feel like they have a responsibility to know everything about it and know what they’re endorsing.”

Having grown up in the church, including staying with the organization for five years after her parents left, Hill told Piers Morgan that conditions and facilities designed for the general population are far different than those reserved for the group’s celebrity members:

“Obviously, the church itself is much nicer,” she revealed to the “Piers Morgan Tonight” host. “Celebrities have their own private entrances. There’s beautiful restaurants there. They have their own classrooms.”

You know what? I’ve been going back and forth on this Tom Cruise issue for years now, and I’ve concluded that there is no way that he doesn’t realize how he’s treated like a god in this cult, and he just doesn’t see a problem with that. Tom is truly in love with his slavelabor. As such, Tom is completely aware that he’s receiving loads of freebies in terms of construction labor and gifts, but he thinks he deserves it because he’s such a “big being“. He has absolutely no problem with his labor being of the unpaid variety because these poor thetans can reap the rewards of basking in the glow of Tom’s happiness. In short (ha!), Tom Cruise is a reprehensible human being.

Tony Ortega has also published a review of Jenna’s upcoming book, and his piece is quite lengthy. I started to excerpt the text, and I just couldn’t do it justice. In short, Jenna became disillusioned with the fabled OTIII level of L. Ron Hubbard’s scripture (the infamous Xenu/volcanoes tale) but decided to overlook that discrepancy because the CO$ was the only life that she knew. Once she got older, Jenna met Dallas Hill, and they fell in love. Unfortunately, the CO$ wouldn’t let them marry, so they engaged in premarital sex and were threatened with separation and never seeing each other again. That’s when they started to plot their escape and met several obstacles not limited to but including the permanent severance of communication from Dallas’ family. It’s a very riveting story, and here’s the link to Ortega’s excerpts if you want to learn more. In the meantime, here’s what Jenna had to say about her childhood:

“To me, the Church is a dangerous organization whose beliefs allow it to commit crimes against humanity and violate basic human rights. It remains a mystery to me how, in our current society, this can go on unchecked. It is particularly insidious because of its celebrity advocates and affiliated groups, such as Narconon, Applied Scholastics, and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. The list of duties and procedures went on endlessly, and the result of all this process, paperwork, and regulation was that there were no children at the Ranch — only little adults. At special events, we were dressed up in cute outfits and paraded in front of our parents and Int crew to make it seem as though Scientology was creating a normal and joyful childhood, when in fact we were all being robbed of it.”

“Little adults.” This term reminds me a lot of what we saw Suri Cruise experiencing before Katie Holmes had the foresight to file for divorce from Tom Cruise. If we get lucky, Jenna’s story will reach many ears who will find the courage to leave the CO$. In the internet (and Wikileaks) culture, we probably won’t see many people gullible enough to sign up with this cult. The primary interest, therefore, is helping people who are already “in” get “out” of this troublesome and unlawful organization.

I give her a lot of credit – not only was she able to get herself out, but she’s willing to fight them now too.
Amazing that even the leader’s own niece was treated like that. The amount of control is insane.

Katie Holmes really deserves a lot of credit, doesn’t she? If she hadn’t handled their separation so shrewdly, the media wouldn’t have turned its attention towards Scientology in the way they have and all these people who have terrible storries to tell about the “church” wouldn’t get heard as widely.

That girl’s got major dirt on Tiny Tom, that’s the only explanation I can come up with which explains how swiftly and cleanly she severed ties with him.
Definitely buying Jenna’s book. The more people know about this ‘church’, the better.

Amen to that – Tiny Tom would have fought her tooth and nail to keep Suri, yet he capitulated without as much as a whimper. I still think the reason is that Katie found out that Suri’s biological father is probably Tommy Davis (who apparently has also blown the cult and is in hiding). Tom wanted to ensure Katie got pregnant but because of his low sperm count or slow swimmers or whatever, convinced her to have a turkey baster of his “so-called” seed. So in turn for keeping this a secret, she gets to walk away with primary custody. I personally will do a happy dance the day that cult crumbles.

Yep, those slaves signed up for a billion years of servitude, so Tom probably feels he’s doing them a favour by giving them stuff to do. What a hero, right? Give him Xenu medal for his generosity, he probably thinks he’s earned it.

Ditto. After reading all the stuff about $cientology that has been coming out the last couple of years (and my thanks to CB for opening my eyes to this group, I’d barely heard of them before), I refuse to put one cent into Tiny Tom’s pockets. I know exactly where that money goes, and I am so not cool with that.

I don’t live in the States, and I didn’t watch the superbowl event, but I’m surprised you see it as desperate: to me, it looks like an expensive, well-made corporate advert that will surely attract a lot of interest.
In addition to this, I am not sure that the fact that the internet is available will reduce the numbers joining the church: isn’t it growing all the time?
The celebrity endorsements are hugely important. If you think of Dina Lohan’s clip yesterday, where she wanted to ‘adopt’ the little girl, that child’s mother was happy enough to play along, in order to get a few pictures. Everyone wants their five minutes. The Church of Scientology is attractive because it openly cultivates this image, unlike most other churches. I am sure, in this day and age, that many join just to feel they belong to the cult of celebrity (kind of touching the hand of ‘god’!).
I think it may be on its way out, but not for the same reasons you suggest: it is more likely to get itself in trouble legally, and that is what will be its undoing.

Membership is not growing. Membership is shrinking, and is much less than the millions they would have you believe.

I can’t imagine that their $4 mil ad buy is going to bring them any suckers. What’s the first thing you do when you hear about something new? You google it. And there is plenty to read, most not flattering. I think it was targeted towards making remaining members think things are booming so they will continue to unquestioningly donate. Fewer and fewer are being squeezed for more and more money. You’ve got to keep appearances up!

I do agree that the legal challenges are likely to hasten its demise. There is a very important case just about to start in Florida relating to financial malfeasance. There is no religious shield for financial wrongdoing, so this should be interesting.

1) Membership is tiny and shrinking. There are fewer Scientologists in the U.S. than Rastafarians or Ekankars. Ever heard of Ekankars?

2) The reaction to that utterly absurd ad was decidedly hostile. My father was at a conference in Clearwater, the worldwide bastion of Scientology, when it came on. The room was filled with people, as the conference had provided a big-screen TV and free booze and snacks for the Superbowl. The reaction of the room was silence, staring at each other in shock, and then talking about how horrible Scientology is. This was a random conference of P.R. professionals of all ages, not young, internet-savvy Twitter users, who hated the thing even more. It may as well have been an ad for NAMBLA.

I certainly hope Miscavige and other leaders of the cult get locked away for a long time for Scientology’s countless abuses. Whether that happens or not, I don’t see Scientology lasting even another five years.

This is what bothers me the most!! It’s as if the government simply gave up on organized crime or terrorism. The IRS throwing in the towel and allowing this sick evil cult to be deemed a religion for tax purposes is absolutely criminal. It should be revisited and revoked immediately at the very least.

Tom Cruise is irredeemably evil and insane. And that maniacal grin must scare small children everywhere. He reminds me of Chuckie.

The CO$ is well known for getting “dirt” – real or fake – on important people and threatening to use it. That is apparently how they got their tax free religious status. They blackmailed people at the IRS (from the Morton book on Cruise). But with all the dirt coming out on CO$, people/organizations/ governments aren’t so afraid of them anymore. No one cares anymore if the CO$ says bad things about them.

I’ve just finished reading Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear and am appalled by the way this cult is allowed to exploit people, destroy families and harass people who manage to leave. And I do not believe that Tom Cruise etc don’t know what goes on behind the facade. However, Cruise, Travolta etc are no longer young, so it will be interesting to see if any younger A-listers are sucked in. Even the Beckhams had more sense!

Thank you Bedhead for covering this and for Celebitchy in general for all the co$ coverage you do. Someone on another site called it scamtology. I thought that was fitting. I noticed in that throne picture how tommygirl is leaning away from his son and towards miscavige. Interesting. Also, his son looks so much like him in mannerisms and expression.

I am so glad this girl escaped.

@Jaded – Just read your comment. So agree with you and others on here. I just wish Katie, and the other high profile defectors would speak out to help the others. I know people said Katie’s only conern is her daugther and I understand that but it would be nice if she helped others in similar situations. I admire Jenna for her courage. I now 100% believe that Nicole didn’t give up on her kids and that they were taken or deliberatley alienated from her and for that I hold tiny tom responsible and he is aware of that so for that alone is reason enough for me to never support him and I wish the rest of hollyweird would do the same. I feel sorry for these women like Rosamund Pike and now even Emily Blunt who are so desperate that they will agree to appear in a film with him. Which is too bad becasuse I like both actesses but nothing or no one could get me to support anything associated with tiny tom.

TG – thanks for mentioning the Nicole Kidman aspect. She gets ripped all the time for “abandoning” her kids but she was clearly threatened by TC and other senior Co$ members with the prospect of her audit tapes going public if she so much as put up a hand. Shortly after she and TC separated, a friend of mine in the movie business overheard her crying to her PA that “if this gets out I’m ruined”. She’s been nothing but gracious and this only highlights what a vicious little megalomaniac Tom Cruise really is.

I’ve always hoped Nicole found comfort in the arms of her Blue Room co star Iaian Glen. Sir Jorah Mormont in GOT, Sir Richard in Downton. I’ve always had a thing for him myself–you girls of the ginger persuasion dong wise should check him out–and I love that according to the Morton book Iain treated tiny Tom with total contempt, as he deserves.

In the comments on Tony Ortega’s blog, where many ex-Scientologists and long-time Scientology critics post, there seems to be a consensus that Katie Holmes’ silence was exactly the right move on all counts. The fact that she said nothing made people more and more curious, and the one thing they could do to salve some of that curiosity was learn about the cult.

Bravo for your bravery! I very much admire the quality and quantity of coverage you are giving this cult. It is solely the result of this bravery and this sort of coverage that the real story of this cult is achieving such reach as to be in the mainstream of public consciousness.

Should this cult ever decide to put you through the suing-into-silence-and-bankruptcy treatment, I am sure many of us would happily donate to your legal fund.

Tom is a moron. He’s a complete simpleton. He is paying millions to get his ego stroked. That’s all Scientolopgy is. Stroking the egos of the rich in exchange for cash and tax shelters.
He needs to focus on acting and stop trying to pump up his religion. His house of cards is about to crumble if he doesn’t start working on new material.
He’d be a good Rod Serling(google him youngins) with his creepy ways.

i’m amazed and in awe of jenna. Just how did her brain, after being born and raised in that cult, discover the catastrophe that CO$ is? God bless her and please God, let this sick cult start unraveling.

Someone please help me understand, maybe i’m just too damn stupid:

1.) HOW in the WORLD does CO$ manage to get away with all these injustices? insiders in govt/depts/kkk.

2.) Why can’t people see this for what it is? even after all the brainwashing. Answer me: what does the church DO FOR YOU for paying such dear costs? What?
Peace? Salvation? Harmony? Brother/sisterhood?

Scientology teaches that if you’re successful — i.e., wealthy — you deserve to be praised, admired, and given even more things. They also teach that if you are not successful — by their definition, that’s if you are disabled, not heterosexual, have premarital sex, masturbate, get sick, have physical or emotional pain, think anything negative about L. Ron Hubbard or Miscavige, talk to people who do not love Scientology, are not wealthy — it’s completely and totally your own fault.

Tom Cruise thinks he is a “Big Being”. He does think he is above the rest of us in a way that is extreme even for a celebrity. He literally thinks he is a better form of human. So what if lesser forms of humans slave for him? Do we cry over a horse pulling a plow? That’s how he sees everyone, except more so, because we don’t think it’s the horse’s fault it’s stuck pulling the plow.

@Bored suburbanhousewife – I love Sir Richard from Downton. Even though I didn’t want Lady Mary to marry him I loved his character and the acting. He was such a baddy. I wish we would see more of him. I also love O’Brien and her scheming ways.

I wonder if Nicole will ever be reunited with her two children.

There is no reason for cruise to leave the cult since all is well for him. I mean he has the freedom medal of valor (god that is so funny), and he is the only one who can help at the scene of an accident. Why would he leave? Oh anyone who hasn’t seen those YouTube videos is really missing a treat.

Tom thinks he deserves freebies because he gives millions upon millions to COS. I can’t even imagine the amount he has squandered on COS. All celebs are expected to give a lot of money. Read about the famous acting coach who stopped giving even though he still belonged and even sent on new potential converts and how they passed around an inflammatory email about him to members, which they later tried to delete.

Tom definitely has some kind of narcissistic personality disorder that allows him to believe he is the chosen one as he is next in power now. He will turn a blind eye to the corrupt cult because it will have made his life a fraud, believing he has these powers as someone who has moved up to the top of COS and is far more than a mere mortal in their bizarre steps to enlightenment. DM has preyed upon that weakness in him, appealing to his grandiose vision of himself, and unleased all of Tom’s narcissistic traits to heights of zealotlike craziness.

There’s a show on the ID channel called “dangerous persuasions” watch the program entitled “a crime for Scientology” about a couple and their son who escaped the cult. The things they did and still do as a so-called religion are jaw dropping! I could not believe how insidious and dangerous the Scientology cult really is!

Just look at that picture of that sweet, innocent little girl on the cover of the book. Can you imagine your child being forced to work 14+ hours a day and only seeing them once a week if you’re lucky?

The practices of this cult under the guise of religion are horrific. And finally, at long last, the public are learning the truth.

For far too long the cult held the media by the short and curlies and finally it’s getting a taste of its own medicine.

Tony Ortega has been reporting on them since 1995 and he deserves huge recognition for all he has done.

Kudos to you CB for keeping your readers aware and informed. Goodness knows how many people you have stopped from falling into their clutches.